The Pig S--t Troll
by SaintHeartwing
Summary: Dib didn't like Zim's creative writing stories, and he made that clear to everyone. Now everyone is sure he's the troll going around blasting other people's work and writing horrible, awful things. With his reputation cratered and people despising him...what's to be done?
1. Chapter 1

Creative writing! One of the best, easiest ways to express yourself in the school setting. It would be a nice and simple way to boost one's grade point average, too.

But it also told people a lot about the sort of person you were, and that was as clear as could be when it came to the "student" called Zim. Dib was very well aware of that. He scowled a bit as he looked through some of the stories Zim had written, all of them were made available on the school's website just like his was or Zita or Sara or his own sister Gaz's, and there were distinct personalities shining through. Dib had spent a long time reading them in his room, his black, scythe-like hair slicked back a little, adjusting his glasses, wearing his usual black jacket as he looked the stories over.

Gretchen had a lot in common with him. She too liked to write mysteries or science fiction tales. Stories of the fantastic. One particular story had a distinct "Carrie" esque influence, a rather homely-looking girl finding out she had psychic powers and was trying to learn "how to blow shit up with my MIND" as she kept saying to her friends and family around her. It actually ended up working, a Poop cola can shaking about on the table to a pineapple and a watermelon getting blown apart to, at long last, the principal's car going up in a glorious bang right before his eyes, thereby ensuring that she would never, ever again get sent to detention or his office for anything.

Sara's stories showed her strict Catholic upbringing, there was much emphasis on guilt, forgiveness, redemption and religion. She had, however, also shown a clear talent in action schlock, FUN action schlock. Dib was surprised to find himself enjoying her tales of the Saints that she'd adapted into stories for others to read, Saint Sebastian taking more arrows than Boromir in Lord of the Rings, Peter racing for his life to escape a hostile city that wanted to kill him, ducking down every grimy alley he could find, and, of course, her magnum opus was on Saint George, the famous "dragon slayer". Not only did she detail a fantastic fight, but George's refusal to renounce his faith, terrible torture sessions, being sliced and diced on a wheel of swords that STILL didn't kill him before finally being decapitated on a city wall. Sara had clear talent for gripping your attention.

Gaz however, loooooved to write horror stories. One particular story stood out. He was in it. Investigating a haunted house, Gaz had written that Dib had heard a grandfather clock chime when the house had been abandoned for over a hundred years, and the clock couldn't still be working. All of the parts were long since rusted and broken down. Then, he was chased by an axe wielding ghost, cracking through the floor, down into a big dungeon…where even more axe wielding ghosts laid in wait! The ending was a horrible twist one too. He woke up in his bed, all of it had clearly been a dream…until you saw the "OR HAD IT?" at the end, with a special illustration she'd made of Dib holding his own severed head up above his body.

But then it came time to Zim's stories. And were he not wearing that black fake hair and fake contacts, Dib knew the little alien invader would be grinning his zipper-toothed grin with a dark, smug light in his ruby/maroon eyes. That little green-skinned piece of crap.

Zim's stories had serious grammatical errors. Zim's stories had him winning all the time. Zim's stories had him doing disgusting, horrible things to humans and especially to Dib, and to his family. Zim seemed to relish in getting to write all of this down and he LOOOOVED seeing the look on Dib's face when Dib was looking at his smartphone, because he knew, he could tell when Dib was reading one of HIS tales. Dib had a unique mixture of disgust, anger, irritation and revulsion that blended together like a bad smoothie, and Zim was drinking it aaaaaaall in…and loving every second of it.

"This doesn't even begin to make sense!" Dib proclaimed, reading the latest story Zim had written. "Why would I ever, EVER help you…YOU…conquer the galaxy? I've spent my whole life trying to keep you from conquering Earth! Literally, years of my life! You expect me to just do a personality 180 and be like "Irken tyranny is fine"!?" He remarked aloud at Zim, giving him a dark glower. "Oh, and then there's this one, this one here…" He pointed at his smartphone screen. "This one just comes off like a torture porn. How did the teacher let you get away with it? It's just you torturing me for no good reason and rubbing your face in winning. And THIS one expects me to be HAPPY that you're conquering the universe using demonic artifacts to help the Irken empire! And then you kidnap my sister and kill people in front of her yet expect us to overlook all that awful stuff because you had a sad past? My childhood has sucked, I didn't grow up to be a megalomaniacal sociopath like you!"

"Bully for you." Gaz remarked with a grunt. "Dib, it's just some fanfics and stories, it ain't a big deal."

"Yeah well maybe not, but it's still gross to me, okay? And if he wants to write about it, I get to complain about it. That's my freedom of speech." He grunted back as Zim smirked and stuck his tongue out at Dib. He had a nice, easy way to get under the human's skin and there wasn't anything he could do.

Nobody had any idea how bad it was going to get.

The next day, their English teacher Nick called the students to pay attention at the front of his class as he walked in, his expression solemn, quiet and disturbed. "I found some…very insulting, horrible reviews put up on the school website, reviewing the stories. I would like whoever wrote them to come forward." He intoned, the rather hairy-armed and hairy-chested young man sighing as he folded his arms over his green t-shirt, Dib looking from him to Zim, then to the rest of the class as they immediately took out their phones to check.

Sure enough, the reviews were astoundingly cruel. They weren't even competently put together.

"THIS STORY IS PIG SHIT! THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"

"PIGSHIT FUCK YOUR PIGSHIT NARDS YOU DERPIN PAN!"

"THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"

"REVIEW MY STORIEZ! u/3211346 REVIEW MY STORIES OR I WILL FIND YOU IN REAL LIFE AND FORCE YOU!"

"Sheesh." Dib frowned. What the heck was all this? It was all in caps. And it had been left not only on stories done by his classmates, but on other classes too. It was odd…nothing linked them at all. After all, the classmates in the grade older than him were super focused on that silly show "Moon Sailor". And Gaz's class, except for her, had all written tales about "Nakuro the Ninja", they were reeeeaaally into anime and manga lately.

"I don't want to believe anyone in my class wrote these reviews but all of the English teachers are asking their students. So…whomever may be behind these? Step forward."

And that's when some of the kids looked right at Dib, murmuring and muttering amongst themselves as Dib glanced back.

"Why are you all looking at me?" He wanted to know, frowning.

"Your stories didn't get that many bad reviews." Sara remarked.

"I still got some, though!" Dib protested. "Besides, that's not a good enough reason to think I did it!"

"But you're always complaining about ZIM'S stories really furiously and being all pissy." Said Zita.

"Why would I leave an anonymous review complaining about his stories when I've always been open about the fact I hate him?" Dib inquired. "I'm gonna all of a sudden decide after **years** of complaining about him to hide my complaining behind a mask because…why?" He wanted to know. "Furthermore, all of the "pig shit" reviews are advertising someone ELSE'S stories, not mine! That's not my account he linked! And I'm not even interested at **all** in those ninja stories or those silly Moon Sailor tales, look at the ones I favorited or left signed reviews on, none of them are in those fandoms. I'm not interested in them, so why would I leave any kind of review, even a raging, hateful one on them? Wouldn't I leave one on something I actually care about enough to get angry or furious over?"

"Yeaaaah, but there's a LOT of hatred in these reviews, and you're the only one in class who gets THAT mad about Zim stories." Gretchen confessed. "It does look kinda bad."

"But whenever I complained about Zim's stories, it was because they were so mean and cruel and misanthropic and Zim was just getting away with being a jerk! I laid out all my points well. And I sure didn't just write in all caps and with bad grammar!" Dib added. "You can't just assume I did it!"

But the kids murmured and muttered amongst themselves as Dib frowned, turning away, Zim sniggering at his misfortune. "Yeah, real funny, Zim. Real funny."

The rumor spread through the school. Poor Dib kept getting really insulting messages left for him on all of his work. Even when none of it even MENTIONED Zim, he got the horrible reviews, accusing him of being a troll, of being "Pig Shit".

"Look at this!" He told the guidance counselor, Mr. Thildari….before he remembered the man with soft white hair and a soft yet dark voice was literally blind and couldn't see it. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt and white pants and sat next to Dib on bean bag chairs in the nice "safe space" he'd set up in his office.

"Could you read it aloud?" The man softly inquired.

"Yeah…sure." Dib sighed. "Heh-hem. "you bash stories all time about Zim, tbh and you bully authors here. you are just as bad as any villain you're bitching about so get the fuck over yoself you preachy hypocrite. if i see more writers quit their storys because you a sneaky, evil person karma will come for you. i hope you believe in Jesus because yo gnna need him and the good Lord to save your sorry ass from going to hell".

"My, my, how very rude of them."

"It gets worse. Some garbled nonsense here too. "nvkdfjsl:Derpin pig shittin h*** humpin nards suckin pan!" And THEN there's " You big fat white nasty smelling fat b*** why you took me off the m*** schedule with your trifling dirty white racist a** you big fat b*** oompa loompa body a** b*** I'm coming outside and I'm going to beat the f*** out of you b***". I mean really?! Oompa Loompa body?! Racist?! Where's all this coming from? And then this guy calls me the q word! What is WRONG with these people?!"

"There has to be some way to stop it." Mr. Thildari remarked softly.

"I don't know HOW. How am I supposed to convince them it isn't me?" Dib groaned, burying his face in his hands as Mr. Thildari gently stroked over his back, and quietly sighed. "What could possibly be good enough for them?"

"I wish I could tell you." The guidance counselor told him. "All I can do is promise you, I'll be here to talk to you. To be as a shoulder to cry on."

"I'm glad you're so good at it." Dib confessed softly as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, sniffling a bit, trying to fight back tears. "People don't realize how…how fuckin' SHITTY it is. It's this daily grind, waking up every day to see nothing but shit flung at you just for having an opinion they don't like, for trying to make the world a better place, for trying to hold people accountable for the awful things they say and do."

"Well Dib, remember, Zim has the right to write stories, even if you think they're awful or dark or cruel."

"Yeah…sure. Doesn't mean I don't get to complain about them!" Dib muttered. "Everyone forgets that. They just want to be free to post anything up with no critique. But this? This isn't critique I'm getting, this isn't like me pointing out character inconsistencies or how meanspirited a story feels, this is just bashing, this is just trolling, this is just swears and vulgar crap and yelling. That's not free speech, that's like…HATE speech. So what am I gonna do…" He murmured, burying his face in his hands. "…what am I gonna do…"

…what indeed.

**Author's Note:**

**Every single review you see from "Pig Shit" and quoted by Dib is literally word for word either what I've received, or what I've been accused of writing. And Dib's views are my own. And that's all I will say for now.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, son, I can tell something's truly bothering you." Professor Membrane remarked as he sat down next to Dib in his room, black-gloved hands folded in his lap, his eyes gazing down through his big, large white goggles…not that you could see them, that glass was thick! "I'd like us to be closer. Please, talk."

"Wow, that's new." Dib thought. His dad outright approaching him pretty much out of nowhere just to talk? "Uh…Dad, when you were young, did people call you names? Bully you? Like…a lot? I'm getting accused of being this horrible online bully that's just TRASHING people's stories on the school website."

"You? Oh, Dib, that sounds so silly! You're slightly whiny, my boy, not a troll."

"…thanks, I guess?" Dib muttered as his Dad ruffled his hair.

"Complaining isn't always a bad thing, Dib. When people were getting sick from the food they bought at their local groceries, it took going to Congress and complaining to the government that the food wasn't right to change things. If we don't point out when something doesn't work, then it won't ever get made better. And sometimes it works! Look at that delightful Sonic movie. I remember when I was young, seeing that trailer drop. My heart sank. My hopes were crushed. But then…then they listened to the outcry, made Sonic look far better, and it was as if I was a child again playing Genesis, hidden away in my closet!" He proclaimed. "Sometimes people listen, sometimes they make changes, and it makes things better. THAT'S the eternal hope of people who complain. That if they say just the right words to the right person at the right time…they'll convince them to be better than they are."

"I'd LIKE to think that." Dib sighed. "But sometimes…I think people just wanna get stuff off their chest."

"Well, that's a human response." His dad told him. "That's normal."

"And sometimes I think people just wanna scream at someone and be heard!"

"That's normal too." Professor Membrane added. "At any rate, I'm not going to tell you to simply get a thicker skin and "buck up". The studies show that doesn't work at all!" He remarked, shaking his head back and forth. "And I'm certainly not going to tell you to retreat into yourself either, or just never go online. No, you need to talk to people about it. Talking always helps, that's what the data shows." He told Dib with a firm, wise, nod. "You can always come to me about this sort of thing, son. I promise you."

"That does make me feel a little better." Dib admitted, his father ruffling his hair before he left the room, a soft warmth spreading through Dib's frame. That HAD been nice, being able to just chat with his Dad. Still…he needed a long term solution. Talking to his father about this sort of thing was pretty much just a band aid.

He needed a more permanent fix. Luckily he knew just who to turn to.

"I need your help."

Gaz couldn't believe what she was hearing. She stared at Dib, mouth agape, eyes wide.

"…YOU…need MY help." She remarked as she stopped playing the latest edition of "Super Smash Bros X Street Fighter", putting the controller down. "…I should call Ripley's Believe it or Not. Rarer than Bigfoot! Rarer than the Loch Ness Monster! Rarer than an actual alien! DIB MEMBRANE ASKING FOR MY HELP." She gave a big, fat, grin. "By the way, that reminds me, guess who was using the belt sander?"

"Wait, Bigfoot's back?!" Dib asked, gaping in surprise. "Is he still there?!" He wanted to know as Gaz led him to the garage door.

"It was never Bigfoot, Dib." She told him.

"Then who was it?"

"CHEWBACCA!" She proclaimed with a grin as, sure enough, a tall, crossbow-blaster-wearing furry alien stood there, black nose a bit ruffled as he finished putting the last touches on his new knife using the belt sander, and cheerily grinned at Gaz, waving at her.

"CHEWIE?!" Dib asked.

"What a Wookie." Gaz sighed. "He's been smuggling me parts for my room security ever since I found him. I can't believe you ever spooked him enough to chase him off, though. What on Earth did you use?"

"Well, evidently wookies are positively terrified of air horns." Dib confessed. "Sorry about that. Must have super sensitive ears, huh?"

"HUUUUHRRRRRUUNNHHH!" Chewie agreed, exiting the garage as Dib sighed and turned to Gaz.

"So can you help me track down that troll?" He wanted to know.

"I dunno…" Gaz rubbed her chin. "I mean, I don't like getting bad reviews left on my stories either, but it is KINDA funny to see you squirming and under so much scrutiny." She confessed. "And you can't just move away or anything. Even if you did, if more reviews popped up trashing people's work, they would just all assume it's still you. Other countries got internet, after all. Unless you were literally tied to a pole and couldn't TYPE, people would just assume you're still at it."

"You're all heart!" Dib grumbled.

"Hey, you wanted help, I'm giving you the truth. That's just how people feel, you can be a really condescending asshole." Gaz said. "You ain't no perfect little angel."

"As opposed to being a REGULAR asshole like you or Zim?" Dib said, his temper flaring up, Gaz looking astounded that Dib was actually talking back to her. "And I've never CLAIMED to be an angel, Gaz, I…I KNOW I can be kind of…pushy. Obsessive compulsive. And I know I can be…insensitive to what other people think and…okay yeah! Yeah, I can be a jerk!" He threw his hands in the air and sighed. "But I'm doing something literally no other kid has to do!" He paced around, shaking his head back and forth. "No OTHER kid has to put up with trying to stop an alien lunatic that's not just a megalomaniac and psychotic alien but somebody outright sadistic and evil and petty and manipulative and a total jerk! **On a pretty much daily basis!** And half the time he almost succeeds at what he does, and if I don't stop him, people DIE! That's…that is WAY too much to put on someone _not old enough to shave_!" Dib told Gaz.

"…yeah, I'll give you that one." Gaz sighed.

"But I'm the only one who gets shit on. Nobody at school criticizes you because you'll beat the crap out of them. You got those freaky powers and everything! Even the teachers are scared of you! Zim? Zim gets off because people see me trying to expose him and they think I'm bullying him unfairly! Even though every day he's always up to something horrible! Literally! Every day! I shouldn't have to deal with him, OR the stuff I get from you and my classmates and now all of this with people thinking I'm not just nutty for liking stuff they think is strange, but that I'm some rotten troll!"

"Maybe Zim **is** the troll." Gaz suggested.

Dib stopped in mid-spiel, and he gaped at her. "…that's…not baaaaad!" He murmured. "That IS the kinda thing he'd do! Framing me for something HE'S done! And when he wants to, he can be really fiendishly clever…" He paced back and forth. "But we need to check. Is there any way to check?" He murmured. "Could we trace his IP address?"

"We could if we hack into the school's computer system, and from there, we can access where the reviews got posted. But while you do that, I'm going to go call a…friend." She remarked, nonchalantly making her way off to her room as Dib raced for his, to begin his hard work. Gaz slid on into her chair in her room, typing into a little keyboard built into the armrest, and PING! A vid screen manifested before her, and a short, tubby Irken was on the other end.

Skoodge, Zim's…friend. Though given how he treated him, you'd think Skoodge was more of a servant. When they went to go get snacks and drinks, it was Skoodge who had to carry everything. When Zim wanted something moved, he got Skoodge to do it and never thanked him. And when it came to the food…

"You see, I can't stand eating anything day-old. So its only fair I make up for it in other ways!" Zim was insisting even now to Skoodge from the other end of the basement, leaving Skoodge with the day old donuts while Zim stuffed his face. Skoodge quietly sighed, shaking his head, and then turned to the screen on his computer station, seeing he had an incoming message, and turning it on.

"Ah, Gaz. How're you?" He asked. Gaz smiled back at him. Skoodge was very eager to please, easy to manipulate but, still…compared to most Irkens, he was a civil, nice sort. Conquering planets or the like was just a job to him, it wasn't personal, and he didn't seem to take any real delight in being a jerk the way Zim did, or Tak did. Besides, he also happened to find Gaz attractive. It was the purple hair. For some reason, Irkens looooved the color purple.

"Hey, Skoodge, I need a favor. Has Zim been bragging about being the troll at school leaving all those awful, sick reviews?" Gaz wanted to know.

"Oh, no. But he's loving seeing Dib go to pieces." Skoodge remarked. "It's really mean. He can't stop laughing uncontrollably whenever the topic gets brought up. He said he wishes he'd thought of it, it's so simple and evil a plan that it **should** have been his plan."

Gaz had to admit that she'd been pleasantly surprised to find Skoodge so agreeable. She'd gone gaming with him, playing online, and she'd grown to learn a lot about him, and also, in return, about Irkens, and it astounded her how much they really had in common with humans. After all, her leaders were also lazy, egotistic, smug jerks who liked hurting people for not being good enough, who forced you into bad jobs that paid barely anything, and thought they were a lot smarter and better than they really were!

And they also placed an emphasis on being tall too. Nobody really respected a short President Man!

Truly, two species joined at the hip without knowing it.

"Thanks, Skoodge. I appreciate it. You're really sure it isn't him, huh? Maybe…it's a long shot but…is GIR doing it? I mean, sometimes GIR gets up to weird things with Minimoose and the Computer."

"GIR has pretended to be a girl online, but he'd never be sadistic enough to leave those kind of messages." Skoodge remarked with a shake of his head.

This was true. The new MMO that came out, "Portal Defenders", a massive crossover game indeed, had come out about five months back and Skoodge had gotten super into it, and he'd been, along with Gaz, very surprised to find a very willing girl character who played as the one and only XJ9 from "My Life As A Teenage Robot" eager to help them. They'd gone on many a raid together and much to their delight, she'd proven invaluable…and also proven to be GIR.

Still, hey. It was a valid life choice. Fine by him.

"Hmm. So much for that. It's not you, is it?"

"No way!" Skoodge insisted. "I get my stories crapped on because I exclusively write fetish material. I'm VERY into macrophilia."

"Yeah, I always wanted to ask, how come you're so into big, huge stories with the rampages or the giants or the big aliens stomping around or eating people? It's kinda odd." Gaz admitted. "I mean, I'm into super metal stuff, I like weird things too, but I always wanted to ask…"

This was true. Skoodge also attended the school in disguise, the same grade as Gaz, and he actually had a lot of talent too. But he reaaaaally enjoyed writing stories with big monsters and aliens. Time after time, they'd be leveling cities or whole towns or some rando would end up becoming a big beast that gobbled up his coworkers or the like. Occasionally he even dived deeper and entire planets would be broken apart or devoured! It was well written, without a doubt, engaging, but it could get…kinda scary.

"Well…I'm short and fat and not the least bit threatening." Skoodge sighed. "Look at me. I'm a tubby loser." He murmured as he picked up his fat gut and shook it about. "But in these stories, I can be anything. I can be big, and powerful, wonderful and terrible all at once. Everyone loves me and fears me all at once. I kinda felt like that right after I conquered Blorch, and the Slaughtering Rat People…until the Tallest shot me outta the closet and another Invader took the credit for my work."

"Wish fulfillment, huh?" Gaz sighed. "Hey, y'know, I get it. I mean, it's why I keep watching "The Craft" or "Carrie" all the time, I'd love to do the kinda things those girls do in those films. Just let loose, y'know?"

"Yeah, sometimes you just gotta feed that wolf that's howling outside your door. Besides, the guidance counselor said it's a good way for me to deal with my more unpleasant urges by expressing them in a creative way." Skoodge added with a smile. "And it's worked! Putting all this on paper made me work through my thoughts and feelings and I began to realize how rotten my species are. We're just the literal worst. Did you know we executed the last artist we had on Irk because he refused to stop drawing propaganda?"

"That sounds dickish."

"It WAS! He said art should be about more than convincing people to blow stuff up. Then they blew him up. A bunch of pieces of him evidently got on Tallest Miyuki when she was in her Invader training, and that's why she decided to tone down the imperialistic tendencies of the Empire…for all the good it did us once Red and Purple came around." Skoodge sighed. "It's too bad, I missed working alongside the Vortians in the labs, those were good years." He confessed.

"Thanks for the help, Skoodge. Keep an eye on Zim for me, wouldja? Good to chat with you again. See you around!" Gaz told him, giving Skoodge a deliberate wink, then shutting the screen off as he sighed softly.

"Anything for you…" He murmured.

Dib meanwhile, had broken into the school system and was looking at various reviews left under people's stories. Hmm, this one was from Gaz-oh. OH! He hadn't seen this before. She was taking umbrage at how the character…an obvious stand-in for her, was portrayed. After all, she had a rough upbringing too, with Professor Membrane never around and yes, when Dib had been younger, he'd done a couple experiments on her. It had actually been what turned her hair purple, and he deeply regretted it, though she'd said she actually ended up LIKING her hair turning that way.

Dib cringed as he read the review. He got that she wanted to see herself as the hero, but…c'mon, Gaz. "I'M the one literally putting my life on the line just about every day, you're playing Game Slave and stuffing your face with pizza, I think I deserve a bit more understanding than you do." He muttered. She came off as so…entitled here!

Oh, and now a new review. "You should be nicer to Zim. He's got mental health issues."

"So do I, but I don't go around trying to destroy planets and enslave people." Dib muttered. "Zim isn't just insane. He's evil. Jesus. Why are there so many Stans for Zim? They all keep thinking he's being picked on when I'm the one who almost always gets it the worst…"

He cringed, stopping himself. "Stop it, Dib. No more pity parties. No more self-flagellating. You gotta focus." He murmured, examining the reviews, scrolling, scrolling. A lot of the troll reviews had been taken down by the teachers because they'd gotten sick of it too, but-wait. A new one. "ReVIEW MY STORiES! YOUR SToRiES ARE PIGSHIT!"

Ah ha. He had the IP address. His fingers swiftly moved across the keyboard, typing rapidly, his eyes widening as he saw where it came from.

It couldn't be. But…

The address was Membrane Labs.

His father's workplace.

What…the…fuuuuuuuck?


	3. Chapter 3

"So it's coming from Dad's lab?"

Gaz was now very intrigued indeed. She sat across from Dib in the living room as he pulled open his laptop, Gaz pulling open a can of "Mountain Spew" and drinking away. Dib glanced over at the black can, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah…but why are you drinking that new flavor? Aren't you more into the original?"

"Yeah, but I wanna give the new flavor a try and I gotta be honest, it ain't bad for a zero calorie soda. It tastes like the way Mountain Spew used to way back in the day. A LOT better than their diet one, I'll tell ya that." Gaz remarked. "And it ain't given me diarrhea yet, so that's a plus."

Dib did the very best he could to suppress his laughter. When it came to Gaz's diet, her constantly going to Bloaty's Pizza Hog had real consequences. The cheese round the clock was getting her blocked, but when the levee finally broke, well…frankly, so did the toilet. Many, many times. And she would make him clean it.

There had been a positive to this though. Dib was now amazingly good at plumbing and mechanical engineering and he was actually picking up some decent money loaning his services out to the neighborhood as a plumber…provided nobody told the local trade unions about what he was up to, because compared to them, he was real cheap. So now he could afford a VERY nice laptop with all the bells and whistles as he showed it off to Gaz.

"Yeah, the IP address was traced back to Dad's lab. Unfortunately, I can't track it down to the very computer, Dad does have enough security in place to keep me from seeing that and no way am I risking jail time by cracking that open. They almost busted me last month when Dad tried to install the "Parental Controls" on our new television and I don't want Officer Krupke giving me that lecture again."

Indeed, in one of the very few times Dib and Gaz had been bound by common strife and pledged to work together for a common good, Professor Matthew Membrane had installed parental controls on their television because he was concerned about the damage being done to them from exposure to new Netflix series. Especially with all the brand new true crime dramas popping up all the time, it turned out to be something both Dib AND Gaz positively loved, the chase, the investigation, the grisly details, it was so engaging. They would watch together on the couch, eyes glued to the screen, binge-watching for hours and hours and then eagerly chatting about ALL they'd seen at dinner.

Well, Membrane had been determined to stop them from having their minds all twisted up by violence and at first it worked really well.

_"C'mon! I wanna watch "The Ken and Barbie Killers!"_

_"Fat chance. You're gonna watch Cupcake Wars and you're gonna like it."_

_"Damn it, lemme watch Don't F—k with Cats, it's a classic!"_

_"No way. You're going to watch "Masterpiece Theatre"."_

_"Well…if it's got Patrick Stewart in it that might not be so-"_

_"Featuring Brian Blessed in the star role of Macbeth!"_

_"OH GOD NO!"_

"_Hey, what gives?!"_

_"That's enough cartoons for you today. You're gonna watch some Animal Planet…no, wait. Better. C-Span. It's good to be involved in politics these days."_

_"Oh c'mon, it's just hearings on air traffic controllers! You fiend!"_

So finally, Gaz had insisted Dib get rid of the thing.

"_I'd be risking major jail time!"_

_"Dib…it's recording the best of Fuller House."_

_"…I'll go get my screwdriver."_

Dib had indeed almost got caught and had to listen to a very irritating lecture from the police. It was rather astounding they got to the house so quick over that, but whenever Dib tried to let them know Zim was up to something, it was "Yeah, we'll get to you when we can".

The good news was the parental controls issue got solved soon enough. Professor Membrane himself decided to get rid of it, saying that though he was worried about the things they were watching, it was his job, not some machine's, to judge and curate what his children saw.

Translation: the parental controls wouldn't let him watch "The Mandalorian" because it was too violent.

"Well can we look up who's working at Dad's laboratory who might have a grudge against you?" Gaz asked as Dib grinned.

"Luckily, that's not protected health information, Dad lists all the employees on the website and under "Contact Us"!" He remarked as his fingers flew across the keyboard and he then turned the laptop to fully show Gaz the list. "Look at who's listed? Keef, of all people is one of the assistants, he's an intern!"

"Hmm. I've always thought there's something off about him…and his stories, well…" Dib cringed.

Keef was definitely, one hundred percent not allowed to write anything even remotely close to sexual. The school had no problem with stories about, say…Zim skinning people alive in one of HIS work. For some reason, that was just fine. Oh, but a bit of soft sex, nakedness? No no no no no! Bad!

But Keef had found a way around that and did stories with lots of innuendo, and a ton…a ton of stories involving Dib, Gaz, Zim…and romance. He called the ones between Zim and Dib "ZADR" and with Gaz and Zim "ZAGR". You could find them cute if you were into that sort of thing, after all, many were astoundingly well written, lovingly detailed, and your heart would begin racing as you kept reading his creative writing tales.

But Dib didn't much like the idea. For one, Zim was over 150, he was waaaaay too old for either him…or Gaz. Two, EW. Three, a lot of the stories had Dib's own personality being ignored just so he could smooch it up with Zim! It didn't come across as a natural evolution or a progression or character development that made sense, it was just "I want this person here, so I'm just going to force them to be there, even if it makes no sense, because the plot is pretty much porn".

Gaz, however, kinda thought it was cute in a funny sort of way. She also knew it wasn't like Dib had never thought about kissing Zim, Dib was still discovering himself, after all, and he had had dreams about…that sort of thing.

"And there's Mr. Elliot!" Dib added. "Wow, why did he decide to work there?"

Gaz smirked and chuckled inwardly. Nobody would EVER know how she got rid of him, and she wasn't gonna tell anyone. And if she wanted you out of your job at the school, it would happen. Now, there were **three** ways to stop her from doing what she do.

…what? You think imma TELL you?

"He could have finally snapped." Gaz mused aloud. "I mean, when the nice ones snap…they really, really go wild. It's the nice guys you need to watch out for, you can trust a jerk to always be a jerk. But when a decent person goes bad, they go baaaaaad."

"Yeah, that's possible." Dib confessed. "Hmm. Look, our janitor works there too." He murmured. "Johnny."

…Johnny. The one and only Johnny. A slim, slender man, messy black hair that was just downright ugly and grimy. A pale body, sunken eyes, and he smelled strange too, like meat that had been left out on the counter for far too long. He liked making little snappy remarks at people too.

"Did you wash the bathrooms like we asked?"

"I'll wash the walls with your blood!"

"Well before you do that, wash the bathrooms."

On top of that, there were rumors that he caked blood on the walls of his janitorial closet to feed a monster that laid within. He was always seen sinisterly smoking at the very edge of school property at night, an anti-social, creepy figure indeed. Him being the actual troll…it wasn't unreasonable to think of Johnny, curled up in his closet, hunched over his laptop, spewing hate out into the world.

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait, look!" Gaz pointed at one of the names. "…Tassirak. That girl's name's Tassirak Doe."

Dib frowned, and he examined the photo that went with the name. "Doe" was a common name for a dead body you hadn't identified and-wait. Wait. Those eyes. The facial structure. The hair may have been different, the skin tone less pale, but Dib recognized those eyes instantly, and that faint Mona Lisa smile too.

And he knew that name, because Tak, Irken Invader, had divulged that to him.

Dib had gotten really close to Tak when she'd first arrived, the purple-haired British-accented girl had been charming, intelligent and clever, and they'd had similar interests. He'd soon spent weeks with her, the two just…talking. Making fun of Zim, chatting about their favorite books and movies they'd read, sharing stories about adventures out in the wild…

And of course, that Valentine's Day dance. "No, no. One-two-three, swing! One-two-three, swing!" Tak had insisted to him.

"Ouch! Don't drag me!"

Her lessons on dancing were harsh but in truth, that time spent with Tak had probably been the happiest he'd ever been.

And that's how he should have known it was a lie. Because Dib knew he wasn't meant to be happy. He'd known that…for a long time.

She'd revealed her real name. They'd eaten lunches and even a dinner or two together. Seen movies and he'd walked her home. And then, just a few days later, she'd turned out to be an Irken invader.

It had hurt. A lot. He'd lost a friend. And maybe someone more. It had really…really hurt.

"Does SHE have an account on the website?" Dib murmured as he examined the school's creative writing website. "…oh wow, yeah, she does, she's using her old username and password she got when she first enrolled, there's not much, but they're there. Wow." He examined them. "She wields metaphors like blunt instruments. You can **feel** Tak in every single sentence, so much of it is in first person and there is a lot of really biting, cynical wit in here. It feels almost nihilistic. And it's super petty, too. A lot of really nasty stuff happening to folks she doesn't like."

"Wow, one story has her as the Tallest." Gaz remarked. "…damn, she cooked and ate the last ones. That's hardcore scary."

"It's beautifully written though, I'd like to shake her hand than recommend her to therapy." Dib admitted. "I mean, she's going into really grisly detail on every minute they die. She must be super bitter. I don't even wanna imagine what happens to Zim when she updates this story, she just finished catching him and she's got him tied up in…Japanese rope bondage? She's into BDSM?"

"The safe word is "eine kleine nachtmusik"." Wow, somebody's letting their inner Hannibal Lecter out, alright." Gaz said with a whistle. "…still, I kinda WANT her to update just to see what happens. It's like watching a train wreck, you kinda can't look away."

"It could definitely be here. We need to go to the lab and sneak onto those computers. If they saved their work on them at any point, I could prove they were behind it." Dib reasoned.

"I dunno, Dib. Not sure I wanna help you with this. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not really fun anymore watching you get dragged again and again for what the troll's doing, but…" She shrugged. "I mean, it's not my problem."

"What if I paid you?" Dib offered as Gaz rubbed her chin.

"…keep talking, Mr. Moneybags."

"My new job is paying me verrrrry well. To plant roses, I've shoveled a lot of manure, as it were." Dib remarked. "So how about it? Is there a new game you want me to buy?" He offered as Gaz thought to herself.

"Hmm. Well…now that you mention it, there is one game that's coming out that I really want. It's Sekiro: Shadows Die Thrice. Comes out in a week. You buy me that, I'll come with you."

"Deal." Dib insisted.

And so, Dib and Gaz made their way to Professor Membrane's lab that weekend as a quilt of dark clouds obscured their stealthy approach. Slinking on inside through the ventilation shaft as Dib temporarily looped the footage of the nearby camera watching the southern side of the laboratory, they crept through the vents and finally deposited themselves in, of all places, Johnny's closet in the lab.

There was a laptop there, hidden by a bucket. Gaz picked it up, gazing through it as she nodded over at Dib. "I'll look over this one, you go look for Keef's. Then we'll meet back here in…half an hour and go look for Mr. Elliot and Tak's."

"Deal." Dib said with a nod, quickly exiting the closet, getting his camera-hacking tool ready as it was clasped tight around his wrist. The lab was almost utterly closed for the moment, most people were heading home, there was just a skeleton crew left over. This meant it was easy for Dib to sneak around, avoiding spots in the security camera's vision and using his hacking tool to loop footage when he couldn't.

At long last, he reached a work station, the same station Keef had been said to be working at, since the website had said he was paired with a "Dr. Jones". Dib looked about, listening intently. No cameras here, and nobody was inside or anywhere nearby. So he slunk over to the computer and booted it up.

Ha! Keef had been the last one to use the PC, his username was on display. And Dib had a feeling he could guess the password.

Yep! Sure enough, it was "ZADRZAGR". "Oh, Keef…ya basic." Dib chuckled as he looked over Keef's internet history and-

"…hoooooo boy."

Well, Keef definitely, one hundred percent was not the one who sent the reviews. But now Dib knew where Keef got so much help in…inspiration…for his work. He had no idea Keef swung that way!...and that way, AND that way and THAT way.

"Well, um…whatever does it for you, Keef." Dib decided, quickly deciding to erase the internet history and log off, shaking his head. Meanwhile, Gaz had finally guessed Johnny's password. She'd had a feeling it was "Mammon" and yep…it was Mammon. Johnny may have been a loyal, devoted Satan-worshipping weirdo…but he wasn't very smart. He'd left a post it note reminding himself to change his last password since it was too easy to guess, and he needed a better one, and to pick a better demon lord. Unluckily for him, not only had he tossed that post it note in the trash can in the very closet Gaz was in, she'd realized the password hint immediately. "Greed is Good". Well, there were a few Demon lords best known for Greed and one of the best had been what she'd picked.

PING! She was in. And my oh my, Johnny had been a naughty boy. He'd taken selfies to share on the Internet of him and the bloody wall he caked gore on, selfies he was sharing on the Dark Web. Nasty stuff indeed. One particularly "funny" one showed him making a kind of macabre "snowman" on the wall with some exposed ribs and a bashed in nose and two eyes burned up like coals!

And then there were his uploads to "Bestgore". Yeccchhh. Gaz was fine with dooming the deserving wretches, but Johnny was just an outright creep about this-

Wait.

Wait, was that a **cat?**

He wouldn't.

_…he WOULDN'T-_

Gaz's mouth fell open and then she darkly glowered, shutting the video off and going through the rest of the janitor's internet history. No, he wasn't the one leaving those reviews. But he was guilty, alright. Just not of the sin Dib thought he was guilty of.

A few minutes later, Dib knocked on the closet door and she exited it, giving Dib a solemn look. "He's not the one. He's a piece of shit, but he's not the one."

Dib could see something was very, very wrong, Gaz had a look on her face he'd only seen when she'd seen crime specials on killers who hurt animals. He thought it best not to ask about it. "I understand. It isn't Keef, either. He's into a lot…but not into that sort of thing."

So now it came time to check the other computer stations. Luckily for them, both Mr. Elliot and Tak were working in the same wing.

Unluckily for them, they were still there. A fact the two found out when they opened the door…

Just in time to see Mr. Elliot AND Tak currently hunched over a computer screen. "What the?!" Dib gasped out as the two wheeled around, seeing Dib and Gaz, staring in surprise as Dib and Gaz looked behind them and-

…Jackass? They were watching Jackass videos?

"You're into those stupid stunt videos where the guys get, like, basketballs bounced onto their balls after they're launched onto trampolines?" Gaz inquired as Tak and Mr. Elliot deeply blushed, Dib racing over to the computer, gaping at the sight before his eyes. He couldn't believe it.

"But it's so…lowbrow! So…STUPID!" He remarked aloud.

"But it's funny." Mr. Elliot said with a shrug. "I can't help it, I find it funny."

"Yeah, something about it simply clicked with me." Tak admitted. "I mean, I do enjoy watching stupid humans suffering for my amusement."

"Yeah, the Germans have a term for it. Schadenfreude." Mr. Elliot confessed. "Happiness at the misfortune of others." He added as Dib looked through their internet history. Yeah, they'd hadn't left the reviews either. All that work, all that effort for…nothing! Except now he knew stuff about his classmates he really, REALLY wish he could unlearn.

"It's not that funny." Gaz said, though she chuckled as she saw a video of Johnny Knoxville soaring off a motorcycle and into a ball pit, groaning loudly…because he was butt naked when he did it. "Okay, maybe a LITTLE funny."

"Sometimes you just wanna indulge in something nice, simple and a bit stupid. Not everything has to be Shakespeare, after all. It fills a need and it doesn't really harm anyone." Tak remarked. "Well, except them, but they get paid for it, so…" She shrugged.

Dib moaned. "Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. I thought for SURE…"

"You're really not that Pig Shit troll, huh?" Tak wondered aloud. "I thought maybe you were doing some kind of false flag, Dib, but…no, it really isn't you." She commented dryly. "Hmm. Well, best of luck with that. Unless another classmate of yours, like, pees their pants or something in front of everyone in school, nobody's going to forget this anytime soon. The good news is that people have short memories. A month or two passes by, and you'll be fine. Folks are like GOLDFISH. Best and worst thing about them!" She laughed.

"…yeah, maybe if I slip Zim some ex-lax under the guise of it being a candy bar I can trick him into taking from me…" Dib mumbled as he slunk out of the room. "This sucks. This totally sucks."

"Cheer up, tomorrow Dad's going to treat us to breakfast, remember?" Gaz offered. "You always like that." She told him as they headed out the office door and down the hall to exit out of the building.

"Yeah, him making his pancake and eggs combo with bacon always-"

Dib stopped. Wait.

…wait.

Could it be?

"…I need to check one more computer." He quietly muttered at Gaz, his voice sounding cold and dead.

…

…

…

… "You liking your delicious breakfast, son?" Professor Membrane asked as Gaz stared at Dib, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He'd said absolutely nothing since their Dad had begun making breakfast and now he was halfway through his meal when he slowly finished chewing and looked up.

"…it's really nice." Dib remarked. "Can I ask you something, Dad?" Dib wanted to know, as he put the fork down and folded his hands in his lap.

"Of course, son! Anything!" Professor Membrane said as Dib took in a long, deep breath.

"Why did you do it? Why did you do those reviews?"

Professor Membrane dropped the plate of bacon he had in his black-gloved hands, looking astounded. Dib went on, speaking quietly. Softly. Soft…but with an edge.

"I thought about it, long and hard. I remembered you were the one who encouraged me to come see you if I kept having problems. The IP address was also traced back to your lab. And then I thought about how…ridiculous the reviews were. They were so badly written but…not badly written enough for someone in my class to have done it. I mean, even a 9 year old knows not to write in all caps. It had to be somebody older, trying to be over the top. And then when I checked your computer, just to be sure…I found out…yes. It was you." He remarked. "…so Dad…why'd you do it?"

Professor Membrane sighed as he sat down at the table, and held his head in his hands. "I…I did want to try and…push you into my arms, as it were. That if I put a little pressure on you in your school setting, you'd keep coming back to me to talk about how you felt. It allowed me to feel like I was the only person you could truly trust, and that felt good. But it wasn't just that, I…" He took a deep breath. "It was…funny to write those reviews. Sometimes it just feels good to be…so lowbrow and coarse and nasty." He admitted. "It was like I tapped into some dark, twisted part of me that'd I'd been ignoring for so long, and when I finally got a chance to let it run wild, it felt amazing!"

He rose up a little and went on. "I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I need ways to unwind myself. I didn't really think I was actually doing any harm. Or maybe…I didn't want to believe it, because I didn't really mean all the things I said, so how could it be anything that bad?" He murmured as Dib took off his glasses, Gaz taking in a short, sharp breath.

Dib never…ever did that. Him doing that meant he must have been really furious.

"…I don't think I want to talk to you for a while, Dad." He quietly muttered.

"…I thought as much." His father sighed as they sat across from one another in silence at the breakfast table, and Gaz quietly sipped on her orange juice.

Come the next day, it was a school day again, and Dib was making his way down the hallway before he overheard a rather familiar accusation.

"I'm telling you, he's writing about your fic in his fic. He's trashing your fic and making fun of it and you as a writer. He's a troll but pretends he isn't and just blames it on another troll when he keeps trolling."

Dib turned around, seeing Zita talking to the Letter M and he frowned a bit as he stared at the girl and the African American boy she was talking to.

"You know, you're just plain wrong." He said aloud, as other kids began to look at him. "It was my dad all this time. Not me. And I don't really care if you don't believe me. I've said my piece. You don't like it, tough." He told her, walking off.

"You think that'll convince us?"

"No. But maybe there's no point in casting pearls before swine." Dib said with a shrug as he walked off. "And people like you who just plug their ears and won't listen to any counterarguments are real pigs indeed." He remarked as he walked off, Gaz walking alongside him.

"Pearls before swine, huh? Nice Bible quote." She remarked. "But I wouldn't be too worried. Tak was right. Just wait a month or so, folks will forget."

"Oh, I don't doubt it. I thought about sneaking Ex-Lax to Zim but…I'm not going to lower myself to that." Dib insisted. "Even if it would be really funny."

"Well, I've got something that'll cheer you up." Gaz offered. "I copied the videos Johnny the Homicidal Maniac did for the dark web and I sent it to the police and now he's in jail! So we're gonna need a new janitor."

Dib stopped in the hall. "…wait, is this because of how good I am at plumbing now? Look, there's no way I can be the new janitor. I'll be a laughingstock! Dib, the janitor!"

"Yeah…but you will get keys to every single room in the school." Gaz added. "And paid twice what those neighbors pay you."

Dib chewed his lip. "…well…when you put it like that…I mean, it would be nice to be able to literally go anywhere I want in the school at any time…and I could use the dough…"

"You could rig the toileeeeets so that they always act uuuuuup whenever Zim goes to use iiiiiit." Gaz added in a faint, singsong voice.

"…I KNEW there was a reason I respected you." Dib said with a big grin.


End file.
